Season Announcement

ATTPAC Dallas Elevator Project throws biggest season ever for 2024-25

Tejas Dance was part of the 2023-24 season.

Photo courtesy of ATTPAC

The next season of the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Elevator Project has been announced, and it celebrates a decade of featuring small, emerging, and historically marginalized groups.

This 2024-25 season season features nine productions — one more than previous years — including five first-time participants. The productions span six world-premiere shows, one regional premiere show, and one world-premiere composition.

Genres and styles explored this season include theater, Bollywood-style dance and celebration, comedy revue, music featuring ancient and modern Asian string instruments, modern Afro-beats, and more.

“The Elevator Project is a thrilling opportunity to connect artists with the space and resources to bring their creative ideas to life on our stages,” says AT&T Performing Arts Center president and CEO Warren Tranquada. “Each event takes unique artistic risks and pushes the envelope of how the stories of our city and its people are told. I always leave these performances feeling surprised and challenged, and I welcome everyone to experience these captivating productions on our campus during this 10th anniversary season.”

Elevator Project participants receive such support as venue access, production assistance, marketing, and other resources to help bring their artistic visions to life.

This season will be staged in several venues on the center’s campus, and specific showtimes are being finalized, with initial shows starting September 2024. All shows are priced at $29.50.

The season is as follows:

Watering Hole Collective presents I Am An Island
I Am An Island is a surrealist dark comedy that takes place on an island that is sinking. In this one-act, May tries to convince others of this but no one will listen, resulting in a political demonstration of her standing still and sinking into the sea. The play is a metaphor for how innately uncertain our world is, how it is sinking — environmentally, culturally, and communally — and how we avoid this.

Artists Sans Frontières presents HAZARDS
Experience the raw power of human resilience in HAZARDS, a gripping and emotionally charged dance-theater production by nonprofit Artists Sans Frontières. HAZARDS unveils the harrowing journeys of refugees, asylum-seekers, and individuals forcibly displaced by conflict, violence, and natural disasters. Weaving filmic vignettes of compelling choreography, dynamic visual projection, and cinematic music composition, HAZARDS invites the audience to become immersed in the strength, hope, and unbreakable spirit that emerges amidst crisis.

B. MOORE DANCE presents The Parlor Room
The Parlor Room is a space designed to evoke the intimate and inviting atmosphere of a traditional parlor room. In partnership with vocalist Damon K. Clark, this collaborative production brings together classical music and contemporary works in an intimate setting with a live chamber group. Step into The Parlor Room and become intrigued in a reimagined world of opulence and creativity, where the ambience of traditional elegance meets the excitement of contemporary performance.

Eleven 11 Productions presents Most Likely Forever Yours
Most Likely Forever Yours is a laugh-a-minute, Second City-style sketch comedy revue that explores the indescribable joy, pain, and fear of loving and being loved. Imagine a very fast-paced episode of Saturday Night Live with a huge heart. The show will be created by Dallas writers and performers who trained at legendary comedy venues The Second City, The Groundlings, I.O. Chicago, and The Annoyance.

Indique Dance Company Presents The Wedding is Fixed
Across the world, a new fascination with Indian weddings has emerged. A typical Indian wedding spans several days with many shenanigans and festivities that keep everyone engaged and exhausted, but most importantly, entertained. Indique will bring the dance and the "drama" in this comedic take on a whimsical Bollywood love story.

Plague Mask Players presents Alice
Alice by Ara Vito is a movement and storytelling-focused adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, told through the lens of a female playwright and ensemble cast of all female and non-binary performers. This production will be the Texas premiere of this exciting new work, and Plague Mask Players is thrilled to be the first to bring it to life for DFW audiences. The play received second place for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Hee Yun Kim presents Strings Attached Across the Pacific
Strings Attached Across the Pacific is a concert with a unique ensemble of culturally diverse string instruments, where the two-stringed bowed instruments from the East, the Korean haegeum and Chinese erhu, meet a string quartet from the West. The concert will include the premiere of a 45-minute, multi-movement composition Calling of the Whales by award-winning composer Hee Yun Kim, which is inspired by the underwater sound of whales and timbral richness of this sextet.

Baba Kuboye presents Cultural Canvas
This project is a series of shows that encompasses live performances and showcases of Afrobeat music. Aimed at promoting cultural diversity and fostering intercultural interaction, the show allows local musicians to contribute to the rich diversity of the Dallas cultural scene by showcasing unique, original, and indigenous African arts. It also enables these creatives, who do not have a home venue in which to perform, to hone their craft and support their families.

Infinite Arts Movement, Inc. presents Unveiling Echoes: A Journey of Self-Discovery
Immerse yourself in a transformative journey of self-discovery with Unveiling Echoes. This immersive show seamlessly blends poetry, dance, theater, and music, transcending boundaries to celebrate resilience, transformation, and embracing authenticity. Eloquent poetry weaves a rich emotional tapestry, enchanting dance sequences express the narrative's essence, and theatrical elements blur the line between performer and spectator. With universal appeal, rare artistic fusion, and emotional resonance, Unveiling Echoes is a captivating, unforgettable experience leaving echoes in every heart.

For more information on the Elevator Project, head here.

dance music theater

A Familiar Face

Dallas Theater Center names Jaime Castañeda as new artistic director

Photo courtesy of Dallas Theater Center

Jaime Castañeda is the Tony-winning theater's new artistic director.

The Tony Award-winning Dallas Theater Center has found its next artistic director: Jaime Castañeda, who has a long history with both DTC and North Texas, will become the regional theater's sixth artistic director beginning July 2026. The 2026-27 season will be the first chosen by him.

Jonathan Norton, DTC’s resident playwright, is currently serving as interim artistic director and will continue to lead the remainder of the 2025-26 season, which culminates in the world premiere of his play Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem in May.

“DTC is committed to artistic excellence and community engagement, and we believe Jaime’s experience, creativity, bold vision, and proven leadership, coupled with his dedication to innovation, will guide DTC into an exciting new chapter in the life of the theater," says board chair Lynn Pride Richardson in a release.

In 2012, Castañeda directed DTC’s production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz. But he began his career more than 20 years ago in Dallas-Fort Worth by founding Firestarter Productions while still attending Texas Christian University. In addition to directing at DTC, other local theater credits include Kitchen Dog Theater, Amphibian Stage, and Circle Theatre. Castañeda is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the Drama League Directing Fellowship, and holds a BFA from Texas Christian University and an MFA in Directing from University of Texas at Austin.

Most recently, Castañeda directed at such leading theaters across the country as American Conservatory Theater, South Coast Repertory, Huntington Theatre Company, and La Jolla Playhouse, where he previously served as associate artistic director from 2014-2018. He was also artistic associate at Off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company from 2009-2014.

"Jaime brings a bold, visceral artistic vision, a deep commitment to new voices, and a collaborative leadership style that inspires artists and audiences alike,” says DTC executive director Kevin Moriarty. “With his Texas roots and national experience, I am thrilled to welcome him home as DTC’s new Enloe/Rose artistic director. I have known and admired his work since 2007, when he was already one of the most exciting emerging directors in North Texas, and I later saw him create unforgettable work for DTC on the Wyly stage and at leading theaters nationwide.”

As artistic director, Castañeda will lead the theater’s artistic vision, direct and produce plays and musicals, oversee DTC’s Diane and Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company, and partner with Moriarty, the staff, and the board of trustees to advance DTC’s mission, vision, and values.

Castañeda joins a distinguished line of artistic leadership at Dallas Theater Center, including founding artistic director Paul Baker, Adrian Hall, Ken Bryant, Richard Hamburger, and Moriarty, who served as artistic director from 2007-2022.

“We are extremely pleased with a successful national search that brings Jaime to Dallas Theater Center,” says DTC board member Chris Luna. “His energy is contagious and he understands Texas and Dallas. We look forward to collaborating with Jaime as he continues his innovative approach to regional theater.”

Castañeda was selected for the role following a national search led by Management Consultants for the Arts. The search committee was co-chaired by Luna and Richardson, and included Moriarty, Norton, Jennifer Altabef, Diane Brierley, Lauren Embrey, Sam Holland (Dean, SMU Meadows School of the Arts), Sharron Hunt, Randy Kender, Julie Kosnik, Deborah McMurray, Sam Megally, Liz Mikel (DTC Brierley Resident Acting Company member), Andy Smith, Lily Weiss (executive director, Dallas Arts District) and Donna Wilhelm.

“Growing up in Texas, Dallas Theater Center was one of the first places where I saw what professional theater and excellence looked like,” Castañeda says. “I’m thrilled to come back and build on the history of artists and leaders who have been a part of this organization. I’m eager to join Kevin, the board, and our staff to create lasting theatrical experiences for our audiences.”

Dallas Theater Center's current production of A Christmas Carol runs through December 27 at the Wyly Theatre.

dallas theater center jaime castañeda kevin moriarty theater